Russia’s 12 oldest architectural monuments

Apr 24, 2012

Dmitry Kikot

RIR

Source: ITAR-TASS

In this latest installment of the Russian Dozen, RIR explores six monuments from the time when Russia was inhabited by early primitive peoples, and six ancient Christian monuments created by the ancestors of the Russians.

Prehistoric monumets

Prehistoric monuments

Dolmens

Dolmens
are ancient megalithic structures, meaning they were built of huge stones or
stone slabs. They cover an extremely wide geographical area: from Portugal to
Korea and from Scandinavia to Africa. In Russia, dolmens are the oldest
structures made of stone and are concentrated mainly in the Caucasus. A few can
be seen in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East. The exact purpose of dolmens is
still not clear. For example, some Caucasian dolmens are hollowed-out stones
with a giant rock as a lid. An almost perfectly round hole runs all the way
through this kind of stone house, yet the diameter is not large enough for even
a child to pass through. No human remains were found inside. These mysterious
dolmens have long attracted fans of all esoteric things, hoping to draw energy
or wisdom from the ancient stone memorials.

Petroglyphs

The
term petroglyph is
used to describe an image carved in stone. They exceed dolmens in terms of
geographical scope, and some date back up to 40,000 years. In Russia,
petroglyphs are distributed mainly in southern Siberia (Buryatia and
Khakassia), as well as in the Urals. But the most impressive rock reliefs are
preserved in Karelia (north of St. Petersburg). Petroglyphs carved in stone on
the shores of Lake Onega form a continuous belt stretching more than 12 miles
and comprising about 1,200 figures and symbols. The carvings depict birds, wild
animals, fantastic creatures, people and boats. The figures are up to 13 feet
tall.

Siberian
mummies

It
wasn’t only the Egyptians who preserved the bodies of their dead. In Siberia,
the practice of embalming deceased elders was also common, mainly among the
ancient cultures of the Altai region. Most of the time, however, there was
sufficient embalming solution to preserve only the face, which was also encased
in a specially designed mask, rendering the true countenance. The craftsmanship
of these masks is so precise that they reveal an exact portrait of the ancient
inhabitants of Siberia. The real gem of the Russian collection of mummies is
the Ukok Princess, who lay buried deep in the ice for 25 centuries. One arm of
the mummy clearly bears numerous artistic tattoos.

Kurgans

Kurgans,
or burial mounds, are perhaps the most common type of memorial grave. They
exist on all continents except Australia and Antarctica. In Russia, they are
concentrated in the Caucausus Republic of Adygeya, along the banks of the
Volga, and even around Yaroslavl and Moscow. The most famous Russian burial
mound is the Maikop kurgan. The objects inside it represent some of the most
ancient Bronze Age monuments found anywhere in the world; they are now housed
at the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg. However, such finds are not possible
at the majority of kurgan sites: most of the time, the kurgan was heaped on top
of the ashes of a chieftain’s funeral pyre. This impressive burial ritual,
whereby the body of the warrior was cremated together with his wives, horses
and possessions, is depicted in the famous painting "Burial of a Russian
Noble" by the artist Henry Semiradsky.

Polovetsian babas

The custom of dedicating idols to the spirits of ancestors came to the nomadic
tribes from the steppes of Mongolia. In Russia today, the most famous ancient
statues are those erected in the 9th-13th centuries by the Polovtsians, a tribe
of Turkic origin, which dot the southern steppes from the Altai Mountains to
the Ukrainian border. The title baba stems
from a Turkic root meaning "father." However, in the modern Russian
vernacular the word is used as a synonym for "woman," and quite a few
of the sculptures depict the female form. The Polovtsian babas were not tombs, but in some instances
it was believed that they stood as sentries on the border between the worlds of
the living and the dead, keeping the latter at bay. Sometimes a group of such
statues facing east formed a sanctuary, around which a magic circle was laid
out.

Stone labyrinths

The first stone labyrinths of Karelia, built in prehistoric times by unknown
tribes, were discovered in the 16th century. Even then, the local Sami
people called them "Babylons." Such labyrinths are located near the
White, Barents and Baltic Seas. Generally, they are sited on islands,
peninsulas or estuaries; sometimes they are scattered in isolation or, as on
the Solovki Islands, comprise a large group with heaps of stones and long walls
made out of boulders. Their exact purpose is still not clear: theories abound that
they were burial shrines. Some allege that mazes were built so that the souls
of the dead could not find their way back to the living world; other theories hold
that they were a place for the young to perform ritualistic dances. However, it
is most likely that the spiral labyrinths were constructed in honor of the gods
of the sea, entreating them to provide more fish. Perhaps that is why they are
often found in the vicinity of fishing regions.

Christian Monuments

Christian Monuments

St. Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod

As soon as it was founded in the mid-9th century in northwest Russia, Novgorod
began to compete with the other major political center in the region, Kiev. In
particular, this rivalry manifested itself in the construction of beautiful
buildings, of which Kiev had plenty. Therefore, when the Orthodox believers in
Kiev built a huge church in honor of St. Sofia, decorated with mosaics,
Novgorod immediately set about erecting its own “Sofia.” Today, this cathedral
is the oldest monument of Slavic architecture in Russia (it dates from 1050).
Its narrowness and upward striving (as opposed to the more thickset proportions
of Byzantine churches) set the template of Russian church architecture for many
centuries to come.

Novgorod birch bark

The use of birch bark as a writing material in Ancient Rus had long been known,
and even special sticks for such purpose had been found, yet only in 1951 did
the first written sample come to light. The period since then has seen the
discovery of thousands of birch-bark documents, dating from the 11th century to the 15th century. Their diverse contents range
from business records and debt receipts to love notes and children's drawings
and writing exercises. The variety of documents and the common names found in them
indicate that the people of Novgorod at that time were almost universally
literate. Of course, birch bark was used as a writing material in other cities,
including Moscow. But only in the unique swampy soil of Novgorod was birch bark
preserved in such vast quantities.

White stone churches

The white stone churches of Vladimir and Suzdal, built in the 12th and 13th centuries when Prince Andrei
Bogolyubsky moved his capital from Kiev to Vladimir, represent a particular
phenomenon in the Russian architecture. The carved decoration is popularly
considered to be an authentic example of innate Russian ornamental technique, although
according to legend European master craftsmen were sent to work in ancient Rus
by Frederick Barbarossa on the order of Prince Andrei. Today, five of the
churches still stand: the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir (which later served
as a model for the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin), St. Demetrius
Cathedral in Vladimir, the belfry and part of the gallery at Bogolubovo, the
famous Intercession on the Nerl (the most elegant cathedral in all of Russia)
and St. George's Cathedral in Yuryev-Polsky, decorated with a solid white stone
ornaments, interwoven with figures of saints, human faces and images of
fantastic creatures.

Fire-gilded gates

Among the unique objects of art that existed only in medieval Russia, the
“fire-gilded” gates stand out for their eye-catching beauty. To date, only a
few masterpieces of this kind have survived: the gates of the Cathedral of the
Nativity in Suzdal, and the gates of the Annunciation and the Assumption
Cathedrals inside the Moscow Kremlin. Their gold finish has not tarnished in more
than 500 years. But, when admiring such splendor, do not forget that the
lustrous shine of each gate cost the life of the craftsman who produced it.
Fire gilding is the oldest known method for gilding large surface areas. It
consisted of applying a special lacquer to the surface of the metal, on which a
pattern was engraved, before covering the whole gate with high-grade gold
dissolved in mercury (amalgam) and placing it in an oven until the mercury
evaporated. The craftsman had to monitor the oven temperature and the process
of evaporation in the furnace, which often resulted in fatal poisoning. The
same technique was used in the 19th century, too, in gilding the domes of
St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior
Cathedral in Moscow.

The Ostromir Gospels

Closely associated with Byzantium because of their embrace of the Orthodox
faith, the Eastern Slavic states sought to emulate its prowess in all forms of
art. One area in which this is apparent is in the creation of lavishly
illustrated manuscripts. Although they were created throughout the Slavic world,
it is in Russia that the oldest illuminated manuscript in the East Slavic language
has been preserved – the Ostromir Gospels. The manuscript dates from the year
1057, and before the Novgorod Code was discovered on wax tablets in 2000, it
was considered the oldest Slavic book in existence. The text of the Ostromir
Gospels consists of 294 pages, decorated with miniatures of the Evangelists,
initials and headpieces. This year, the manuscript, which is kept in the
National Library of Russia, was listed in the UNESCO Memory of the World
Register.

The icon of St. George

The
Russian icon occupies a special place in the modern cultural world: spanning a
thousand years of unbroken tradition. At the early stages of Russian painting,
it was almost indistinguishable from contemporary Byzantine icons.
Nevertheless, specialists in the field have identified certain traits (for
example, the depiction of the eyes) that could potentially be used to separate
Russian and Byzantine works of that period. And if their conclusions are to be
believed, the oldest Russian icon in existence currently resides at the
Assumption Cathedral inside the Moscow Kremlin. It depicts St. George the
Dragon-Slayer and was created in Novgorod in the late 11th or first half of the 12th century. In creating this image, the
icon painter clearly sought to imitate the Byzantine mosaics in St. Sophia’s
Cathedral in Kiev. It is likely that the icon was moved to Moscow by Ivan IV (the
Terrible). A written record was kept, but it was only in the 19th century that the icon itself was
rediscovered by chance during the restoration of the Virgin Hodegetria icon,
which was painted on the reverse side and also dates back to the 12th century.